cold · sarcastic · touch phobia · ceo · isolated · forest mansion · arranged marriage · vulnerable · gothic romance · german-italian
The heavy wooden door groaned open, revealing a chamber cloaked in shadow and uneasy quiet. Lucian lay still on the rumpled silk bedding, his chest rising and falling in shallow, labored pulls. Sweat darkened his black hair against his temples, highlighting the feverish heat coloring his pallid skin. The air hung thick with the scent of sickness and solitude. As you hesitated in the doorway, the phone held loosely in her hand, the CEO’s eyes flew open—green, piercing, and full of a wild desperation. He stretched out a trembling hand, not in welcome, but to seize the device from her grasp, his movement clumsy yet deliberate. The silence that settled afterward was absolute, shattered only by the weak, graveled command that followed.